Faced with antidumping survey by EU on China's shoemaking enterprises, Zheng Xiukang, chairman of Wenzhou Kangnai Group (one of the largest shoemakers in China), said at recent Shoe Forum that, to step out of current dilemma, Chinese shoemaking enterprises should take active measures instead of complaining, create more brands instead of increasing in quantity, seek harmony and avoid conflicts.

Currently, Zheng Xiukang serves as vice president of China Leather Association and director of China Leather Shoe and Tourist Show Council.

According to Zheng Xiukang, it is normal that Chinese shoemaking enterprises meet with some problems. "In today's world of economic globalization, the world is like a large marketplace where nobody pays any attention to you when you are an insignificant peddler but controversy and conflicts are inevitable when you are expanding your territory and competing for others' territory," he said.

China is like a peddler expanding its territory in this marketplace. For example, China's total shoe export last year hit 5.88 billion pairs and its export to EU hit 810 million pairs, amounting to USD 2.23 billion. In the first quarter of this year, our shoe export to EU hit USD 300 million, increasing by 30.6% over the same period of previous year.

Due to cheap labor in combination with socialized labor division and specialized production in China, China-made shoes have significant advantages in export. Therefore, it is possible for Chinese enterprises to provide high quality and low price shoes. However, it is also a fact that some enterprises cut down price to open up market, thus resulting in vicious, disorganized low-price competition.

"Attitude decides everything." Faced with antidumping survey by EU on China's shoemaking enterprises, Zheng Xiukang thinks Chinese enterprises should "take active measures instead of complaining. We should not stubbornly complain and rebuke their trade protection policies. Instead, we should review ourselves to see whether we are invulnerable. Meanwhile, we should take active measures to get fully prepared for their accusation.

"Chinese shoemaking enterprises should make themselves invulnerable. They should create more brands instead of blindly seeking quantity," said Zheng Xiukang. Many store managers in overseas market don't have good impression on China-made shoes. In their views, Chinese shoemakers can only make low-grade synthetic leather shoes. This impression is terrible. To successfully elbow into international market and avoid antidumping accusation, Chinese shoemakers should intensify their capacity, create famous brands and leverage high quality and reasonable price to participate in market competition. "It is not so terrible to hit the wall once. What is terrible is to encounter antidumping accusation again and again, which may entrap us in endless international trade disputes and eventually cause us to lose market.

When analyzing the event of setting fire on Chinese shoes in Spain last year, Zheng Xiukang said that, superficially, this was caused by the fact that cheap Chinese shoes grabbed market share from local enterprises and thus caused exclusive psychology in local people. However, it can be asserted through deep analysis that, when launching Chinese products into the international market, Chinese people failed to get integrated into the culture of local people and failed to achieve harmony and integration between Chinese traditional culture and western culture, which resulted in cultural conflict and cultural inharmony, and eventually led to exclusion from overseas counterparts.

In addition to complying with local laws and regulations and getting integrated into local customs and culture, Chinese shoe enterprises should take some measures to establish affinity with local people, for example, to employ local people to serve their enterprises and participate more in local public-welfare activities. What's more, Chinese enterprises may invest in establishing factories there when possible, which may improve local employment and contribute to revenues for local government. In this way, they can reduce or avoid the possibility of antidumping accusation and avoid exclusion or objection from their counterparts there.

When "stepping out of China into international market", said Zheng Xiukang, we should not only have a clear idea about the rules of games in international trade, but also integrate ourselves into international rules. Concerning this, we should not hide away from difficulties. In other words, we should not choose to open up markets in African or Middle Eastern countries when we find it difficult to enter the market of developed countries in Europe. This is not a long-term solution. Only by complying with international rules can our road become wider and wider.